Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

[Chimeraguard]

This was the situation when Kane "negotiated" with GDI. The Blue Zones were gone. So gone in fact, that GDI was hosting its meetings in a building where the neighboring skyscrapers were halfway to becoming Tiberium towers, and the very building they were meeting in had Tiberium growing on one side.

Kane got to dictate terms to GDI in Canon, because they literally had no alternative. It was either completely agree to Kane's terms, or they all die.

We probably won't be in such a bad situation when 2062 comes. But we can't beat Tiberium on our own even with our Scrintech and the extra few years we had before mutation. All we can do is buy time; hopefully enough for Kane to give us his offer (a hopefully better one than in Canon because we're in a better spot and would be starting evacuations to space, therefore Kane has to make concessions lest he push GDI into rejecting the deal), and for us to then build the TCN before too many population centers are overrun.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The Tiberium has already breached the planet's crust. We literally can't stay on Earth longterm without the TCN. Without it tiberium will eventually overrun our defenses, no matter what we do.

And the only way to get the TCN is to make a deal with Kane (which right now is looking to be 2062 or 2066). The more people on Earth, and the less in Space, that we have, the more leverage Kane will have in those negotiations.

Space is mandatory. And I'm going to bet that even if we spent every free die between now and 2062 on evacuating to space that we'd still have a massive number of people left on Earth waiting to be evacuated.

Click to shrink...

While I am strongly pro-spaceship on general principles, I reject this specific justification for spaceship.

Because I say we build our own TCN. With blackjack and hookers.

Sure, it won't work very well (neither blackjack nor hookers are effective tiberium mitigation measures). But it'll be a start, and it'll probably be more than Kane can afford to build with demented mutant tiberium overrunning all his carefully cloaked bases and shit.

And also we should have spaceships yes absolutely, but that's because spaceships are awesome.

The thing is that Tiberium going out of whack will bring Nod faster to their knees than us because of their dependence on Red and Yellow Zone industry for support. In OTL it nearly did bring Nod to the negotiations table first instead of GDI. But now that we get Scrin and Nod mitigation methods and marry them to GDI industry that can be only described as 'Industry? YES.'? We will slow down the process in our areas enough that It will be the Brotherhood and Kane going on their knees, beginning us to stop the green crystal with the TCN powered by our industry. Can you imagine such propaganda coup? It will literally vindicate GDI's message of not spreading Tiberium around willy-nilly like Nod is doing, that it had been saying since the 90s, in the most karmic blunt way possible.

Click to shrink...

I like this.

This was the situation when Kane "negotiated" with GDI. The Blue Zones were gone. So gone in fact, that GDI was hosting its meetings in a building where the neighboring skyscrapers were halfway to becoming Tiberium towers, and the very building they were meeting in had Tiberium growing on one side.

Kane got to completely dictate terms to GDI in Canon, because they literally had no alternative. It was either completely agree to Kane's terms, or they all die.

We probably won't be in such a bad situation when 2062 comes. But we can't beat Tiberium on our own even with our Scrintech. All we can do is buy time; hopefully enough for Kane to give us his offer (a hopefully better one than in Canon because we're in a better spot and would be starting evacuations to space), and for us to then build the TCN before too many population centers are overrun.

Click to shrink...

The thing is, I don't think Kane seems to have had a backup plan if GDI said "fuck you, we'd rather die than work with you" either. It just looks like Kane got everything he wanted and was in full control of the situation because, well... he's Kane.

Kane is very good at walking into a room and taking charge of the situation, and a bunch of frightened bureaucrats who are staring down the barrel of total human extinction within the decade won't be able to assert their own control of the situation at his expense and in his presence.

One of the reasons Kane gets away with so much is by always acting like he's in control of the situation. Don't mistake his facade of invincibility, confidence, and superiority for the reality of his own bargaining situation.

And yes, I know what @Ithillid said. But unless I'm missing something... Kane still needed GDI. It's just that he was confident enough in his own ability to assert dominance over the situation, and in the relative moral and spiritual weakness of GDI's leadership, that he'd be able to keep an alliance with GDI on his terms rather than theirs.

 

[Image]

It sure sounds like the Gm has a vision and by god will they see to it. Kinda makes any attempt to do otherwise seem pointless. Come on. If that were true it wouldn't make sense how much effort the Gm has put into the quest.

Why even bother giving the illusion of choice if it wasn't possible or viable? Because it might actually be. It's the 2050s we are in a better place than the original timelime as we have not lost a blue zone yet and the yellows still exist.

If we can't abate the green tide without TCN so be it. We will make due. The more we can squeeze out of Nod and scrin tech the better our position. Abandoning earth is the worst option as it would thoroughly doom our species faster than even Tiberium would.

The amount of technologies needed for even the slightest interstellar civilization is more than the maybe 100k we could evacuate off world. Let alone sustain. Escape to space is a fools hope. We must stand our ground here and now or die slowly in space. As bad as it on Earth it will be worse up there.

There be dragons and even more Tiberium up there.

We run and we lose.

 

[Chimeraguard]

The thing is, I don't think Kane seems to have had a backup plan if GDI said "fuck you, we'd rather die than work with you" either. It just looks like Kane got everything he wanted and was in full control of the situation because, well... he's Kane.

Kane is very good at walking into a room and taking charge of the situation, and a bunch of frightened bureaucrats who are staring down the barrel of total human extinction within the decade won't be able to assert their own control of the situation at his expense and in his presence.

One of the reasons Kane gets away with so much is by always acting like he's in control of the situation. Don't mistake his facade of invincibility, confidence, and superiority for the reality of his own bargaining situation.

And yes, I know what @Ithillid said. But unless I'm missing something... Kane still needed GDI. It's just that he was confident enough in his own ability to assert dominance over the situation, and in the relative moral and spiritual weakness of GDI's leadership, that he'd be able to keep an alliance with GDI on his terms rather than theirs.

Click to shrink...

Oh Kane absolutely needs GDI to complete the TCN. NOD doesn't have the big industrial base that GDI has to actually get the TCN built.

That's another part of why we want to be starting space evacuations and settlements. If Kane sees that GDI has alternatives to the TCN, he'll realize that he has to make his TCN proposal on much more even ground and while giving up way more. Otherwise, GDI may just say "screw you Kane" and continue sending people to space while leaving him to rot on Earth.

The amount of technologies needed for even the slightest interstellar civilization is more than the maybe 100k we could evacuate off world. Let alone sustain. Escape to space is a fools hope. We must stand our ground hear and now or die slowly in space. As bad as it on Earth it will be worse up there.

Click to shrink...

Actually, evacuating millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions would have been a perfectly viable option. Even though we're behind Canon GDI in space infrastructure, we're still capable of evacuating a large portion of our current population into space if we commit to it.

Space Evacuation over Reclamation was a choice we had at the start of the Quest for what GDI's plan would be. We just didn't pick it and haven't been developing as much towards orbitals. And even now, we're fully capable of committing many more resources to space than Canon GDI ever had available.

 

[Image]

Oh I knowing was an option. It's just that I beleive it to be trap option.

We would not be dealing with Nod for awhile beyond the infiltrators ruining our ships like it was BSG, our main foe would have been the scrin armadas we would run into and be slaughtered by.

And once we survived that, Nod would be back at our heels having followed us as Kane abandoned them to their fate after gaining control of the planet and ascending.

 

[Lightwhispers]

It sure sounds like the Gm has a vision and by god will they see to it. Kinda makes any attempt to do otherwise seem pointless. Come on. If that were true it wouldn't make sense how much effort the Gm has put into the quest.

Why even bother giving the illusion of choice if it wasn't possible or viable? Because it might actually be. It's the 2050s we are in a better place than the original timelime as we have not lost a blue zone yet and the yellows still exist.

If we can't abate the green tide without TCN so be it. We will make due. The more we can squeeze out of Nod and scrin tech the better our position. Abandoning earth is the worst option as it would thoroughly doom our species faster than even Tiberium would.

The amount of technologies needed for even the slightest interstellar civilization is more than the maybe 100k we could evacuate off world. Let alone sustain. Escape to space is a fools hope. We must stand our ground here and now or die slowly in space. As bad as it on Earth it will be worse up there.

There be dragons and even more Tiberium up there.

We run and we lose.

Click to shrink...

No. We have been told that one way to "win" is by evacuating the planet. And that it's doable. C&C tech is *very* good at infrastructure, and that's what we need to build up to evacuating lots of people.
Had we kept hold of the Tacitus, there would have been a chance to develop the TCN on our own, but that would have been Hard Mode.

Oh I knowing was an option. It's just that I beleive it to be trap option.

We wouldnot be dealing with Nod for awhile beyond the infiltrators ruining our ships like it was BSG our main foe would have been the scrin armadas we would run into and be slaughtered by.

And once we survived that Nod would be back at our heels having followed us as Kane abandoned them to there fate after gaining control of the planet and ascending.

Click to shrink...

Ithillid has said it was not a trap option. If you think they're a liar, you might as well just leave this quest now.

 

[Oshha]

Oh I knowing was an option. It's just that I beleive it to be trap option.

Click to shrink...

Then you would be wrong because it isn't a trap option. We are perfectly capable of evacuating humanity into space and have been so since the start of the quest. Like it was an option to us since the opening post. It is player choice that we haven't really gone down that path and the fact we have chosen not to take options offered to us by the QM doesn't make those trap options.

Furthermore, the QM has repeatedly made it clear that abatement isn't eradication and since Tiberium breached the Earth's crust, we have been on borrowed time barring a miracle like the TCN.

 

[Chimeraguard]

Oh I knowing was an option. It's just that I beleive it to be trap option.

We would not be dealing with Nod for awhile beyond the infiltrators ruining our ships like it was BSG, our main foe would have been the scrin armadas we would run into and be slaughtered by.

And once we survived that, Nod would be back at our heels having followed us as Kane abandoned them to their fate after gaining control of the planet and ascending.

Click to shrink...

We're no more screwed than we'd be sticking around on the surface and waiting for the Scrin "Earth will fall" invasion fleet.

And besides, the evacuation plan isn't "hop on spaceships and venture into the great unknown." It's "built a fuckton of orbital habitats and colonies on the moon and Mars." Which also means we're sticking around in the Sol system and building orbital mines and refineries to continue mining Earth for Tiberium.

 

[Image]

That's intersting. I look at the infrastructure we have now and am supposed to believe that it could evacuate the planet? Okay.

As for 'trap' we get off planet and then what be wandering fleet trying to terraform worlds. When we know that the scrin.are out with actual military class vessels against our mass colony ships? How does that not sound like a slaughter waiting to happen?

GDI or whatever new government would have to deal with a seed change on how to do virtually everything. From scratch. All the will Nod doing the same things and now with potential scrin patrol fleets.

That sounds rough. As for leaving the quest why? Do my concerns about direction and tone seem wrong to you? I'm sorry.

I just feel that proper thought into space hasn't been given and the dangers such rush has. If you want me to be quiet I will.

 

[Rakuhn]

While I am strongly pro-spaceship on general principles, I reject this specific justification for spaceship.

Because I say we build our own TCN. With blackjack and hookers.

Sure, it won't work very well (neither blackjack nor hookers are effective tiberium mitigation measures). But it'll be a start, and it'll probably be more than Kane can afford to build with demented mutant tiberium overrunning all his carefully cloaked bases and shit.

And also we should have spaceships yes absolutely, but that's because spaceships are awesome.

I like this.

The thing is, I don't think Kane seems to have had a backup plan if GDI said "fuck you, we'd rather die than work with you" either. It just looks like Kane got everything he wanted and was in full control of the situation because, well... he's Kane.

Kane is very good at walking into a room and taking charge of the situation, and a bunch of frightened bureaucrats who are staring down the barrel of total human extinction within the decade won't be able to assert their own control of the situation at his expense and in his presence.

One of the reasons Kane gets away with so much is by always acting like he's in control of the situation. Don't mistake his facade of invincibility, confidence, and superiority for the reality of his own bargaining situation.

And yes, I know what @Ithillid said. But unless I'm missing something... Kane still needed GDI. It's just that he was confident enough in his own ability to assert dominance over the situation, and in the relative moral and spiritual weakness of GDI's leadership, that he'd be able to keep an alliance with GDI on his terms rather than theirs.

Click to shrink...

You are missing something. Kane isn't going to approach us unless he thinks that we are about to lose to tiberium, or unless he thinks that if we are given a few more years that we won't be threatened by tiberium anymore.

The Blue, Yellow, and Red Zone trackers? They aren't telling us what the spread of tiberium is. They are telling us how much of the surface is habitable. Even if the tiberium dice were nothing but 2s (I'm not going to make a bet on nat ones), and the whole surface was converted to Blue Zone, we'd still be screwed. The core is slowly turning into tiberium, which will become liquid tiberium, which will explode the planet. And it doesn't matter if the GDI are willing to be Hard Men Making Hard Decisions While Hard at that point and threaten to refuse to work with Kane to get him to fold. All he needs is for the people around them to decide that they and their families' lives matter more than some bureaucrats' pride and to coup the leadership, and then they'll give him what he wants (and Kane is very, very good at convincing people to do just that).

The only way to avoid the planet exploding is the TCN, which needs the tacitus to be able to research and develop. No mcguffin, no TCN. Right now Kane has the tacitus, and barring a massive military victory on our part, we aren't going to be able to develop the TCN without him. And frankly, I expect that getting our population to space will be a lot easier and cheaper than a complete and total victory over NOD, relying on the tacitus not being lost or destroyed during the operation, and a lot less likely to be rendered pointless by a deus ex machina (roll) Kane MASTERSTROKE.

So without us going to space, Kane is very, very likely to win.

And yes, there are a lot of other good reasons to go to space. The resources, the lack of tiberium, the (relative) lack of NOD, the research opportunities, the military options, and so much more. But no one is contesting that right now. The question is how necessary is putting out population in space if we want to keep Earth without giving Kane everything he wants. And the answer to that question is that for all intents and purposes it is mandatory.

 

[Simon_Jester]

It sure sounds like the Gm has a vision and by god will they see to it. Kinda makes any attempt to do otherwise seem pointless. Come on. If that were true it wouldn't make sense how much effort the Gm has put into the quest.

Why even bother giving the illusion of choice if it wasn't possible or viable? Because it might actually be. It's the 2050s we are in a better place than the original timelime as we have not lost a blue zone yet and the yellows still exist.

If we can't abate the green tide without TCN so be it. We will make due. The more we can squeeze out of Nod and scrin tech the better our position. Abandoning earth is the worst option as it would thoroughly doom our species faster than even Tiberium would.

The amount of technologies needed for even the slightest interstellar civilization is more than the maybe 100k we could evacuate off world. Let alone sustain. Escape to space is a fools hope. We must stand our ground here and now or die slowly in space. As bad as it on Earth it will be worse up there.

There be dragons and even more Tiberium up there.

We run and we lose.

Click to shrink...

I think you underestimate our ability to do well in space, although currently we're at the bottom of a very sharp capability cliff that rises upwards from here in terms of what can be done in space.

My own stance is that I think the QM is well within his rights to present this as "there is no way to permanently control tiberium and win the "fight it out on Earth" path without building the TCN." That's a very reasonable position for the game.

I'm a bit crankier about the idea that we can't figure out a TCN, eventually, without Kane's help or without extraordinary luck. I would think that digging into Scrin technology should give us a fighting chance if we push it aggressively enough.

However, we'd likely be having to do this under extreme difficulty and desperation to the point where even under the best of conditions, Kane's help would be fucking wonderful.

Oh I knowing was an option. It's just that I beleive it to be trap option.

We would not be dealing with Nod for awhile beyond the infiltrators ruining our ships like it was BSG, our main foe would have been the scrin armadas we would run into and be slaughtered by.

And once we survived that, Nod would be back at our heels having followed us as Kane abandoned them to their fate after gaining control of the planet and ascending.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I have no idea what you're even visualizing. I don't think Kane would actually give a shit or try to stop us from going into space. The Scrin might or might not be a genocidal threat to us at that point; I'm not sure they even care about humanity except insofar as we were interfering with tiberium harvests by fencing the tiberium in and keeping it from overrunning the planet.

And how would Nod even follow us without capturing our working industrial base behind us and operating it themselves? They can't get into space by stacking up dead militants or bolting on extra mods to an Avatar or anything. How would Kane ascend without the necessary infrastructure? We'd still be using that stuff right up until it was overrun by tiberium, after all.

You're not making any sense.

That's intersting. I look at the infrastructure we have now and am supposed to believe that it could evacuate the planet? Okay.

Click to shrink...

What would our space infrastructure look like if we'd been sinking our free dice into Orbital since game start, or taken choices specced for having more Orbital dice?

I don't think you know, and I certainly don't know myself. And without knowing that, I can't assume it wouldn't work.

That sounds rough. As for leaving the quest why? Do my concerns about direction and tone seem wrong to you? I'm sorry.

Click to shrink...

I think that by asserting that the QM is outright lying about the basic strategic direction of the quest and railroading us by telling us "X won't work" and then giving us alternative Y and reacting with 'okay' when we don't do it...

Well, at that point you can't reasonably trust the QM, which means that there's little point in hanging around here except to launch personal attacks on the QM's character. Which is counterproductive because it tends to do nothing other than damage everyone else's enjoyment of the game.

 

[sunrise]

As for 'trap' we get off planet and then what be wandering fleet trying to terraform worlds. When we know that the scrin.are out with actual military class vessels against our mass colony ships? How does that not sound like a slaughter waiting to happen?

Click to shrink...

The evacuation we are talking about is not a fleet leaving the solar system but spreading across it in domes on Mars, bases on our Moon and stations in orbit of the planets. With the majority of humanity living of earth but still remaining in control of earth where the tiberium mines and factories support the orbital stations and other worlds.

 

[Lightwhispers]

That's intersting. I look at the infrastructure we have now and am supposed to believe that it could evacuate the planet? Okay.

As for 'trap' we get off planet and then what be wandering fleet trying to terraform worlds. When we know that the scrin.are out with actual military class vessels against our mass colony ships? How does that not sound like a slaughter waiting to happen?

GDI or whatever new government would have to deal with a seed change on how to do virtually everything. From scratch. All the will Nod doing the same things and now with potential scrin patrol fleets.

That sounds rough. As for leaving the quest why? Do my concerns about direction and tone seem wrong to you? I'm sorry.

I just feel that proper thought into space hasn't been given and the dangers such rush has. If you want me to be quiet I will.

Click to shrink...

We have no ability to indefinitely hold off Tiberium without the TCN. That doesn't mean that we can't hold it of for decades while we build the needed infrastructure on the ground and in space. This is something Ithillid has said, flat-out.

So, with what you said, you are accusing Ithillid (as QM) of lying to us.
That is what I am objecting to.

As for Kane, and the TCN, he has an agenda which is tangentially related to the survival of humanity. But frankly, I'm okay with letting him and a bunch of his followers go fuck off wherever in exchange for a way to turn Tiberium from an evil space magic money rock into a sleeping space magic money rock.

 

[Ithillid]

So, for one thing, you absolutely can kick NOD to death and reclaim the earth's surface. Would be very hard to make enough abatement to keep up with mutation, especially with how your rolls have been. The thing is that even if you do reclaim the surface, throw down Tiberium Boreholes and the like. You can push the time when you lose out to 2100, even 2150 or so, but it is not a permanent solution.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The evacuation we are talking about is not a fleet leaving the solar system but spreading across it in domes on Mars, bases on our Moon and stations in orbit of the planets. With the majority of humanity living of earth but still remaining in control of earth where the tiberium mines and factories support the orbital stations and other worlds.

Click to shrink...

...You know, that sounds a lot like it might be how the Scrin got their start.

Only eventually they integrated tiberium into their biology, but that's totally an option we could have pursued if we wanted to, or could pursue in the future.

So, for one thing, you absolutely can kick NOD to death and reclaim the earth's surface. Would be very hard to make enough abatement to keep up with mutation, especially with how your rolls have been. The thing is that even if you do reclaim the surface, throw down Tiberium Boreholes and the like. You can push the time when you lose out to 2100, even 2150 or so, but it is not a permanent solution.

Click to shrink...

Just to make sure I understand you because I think a lot of this hasn't been brought up much in the thread...

Let me see if I get this right.

Is this because the Earth's mantle is getting turned into tiberium? Because if that's happening, then we can't possibly harvest and convert and contain the tiberium down there, the stuff that's slowly growing tens or hundreds of kilometers underground, because there's no plausible way to do that even with excellent technology. Even if we could mine it we can't eliminate it. So it'd just keep spreading through the interior, and eventually any Blue Zone we were maintaining on the Earth's surface would be claimed by massive eruptions of tiberium veins from below, originating inside the mantle and spreading up through the crust.

And so, the only way to stop the Earth from just literally turning into a solid tiberium rock is with the kind of prodigiously effective tiberium control found in the TCN, which basically represents a level of influence over tiberium at which we can broadcast "SIT. STAY." to all the existing tiberium on (or, more importantly, in) the planet.

 

[Image]

What I personally foresaw from the space option was the future GDI basically having move around the solar system mining worlds for resources and dodging scrin fleets while hardline NOD fanatics do there best to ruin space ships left and right. The movement to space would be a political landmine with both vindication from Nod and Capitulation to out populace. Not helped by the my overblown fears of what moving millions of people into orbit on a timeframe as dire as we predicted. Especially with Tiberium mutation and Red zone rolls consistently on the higher side of average and abatement shown to have many diminishing returns.

The other bits of the my 'posts' were mostly about how the game could possibly continue once in space. What would be the threats? Unless tiberium is so nasty it would follow us into space it wouldn't be a problem, and if Nod would let us leave they can't be the foil, so that leaves the scrin to plop there heads back into the game to allow further play.
Rereading what I wrote, I did imply things about the Gms character. That was wrong of me. I am sorry.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

I'm a bit crankier about the idea that we can't figure out a TCN, eventually, without Kane's help or without extraordinary luck. I would think that digging into Scrin technology should give us a fighting chance if we push it aggressively enough.

However, we'd likely be having to do this under extreme difficulty and desperation to the point where even under the best of conditions, Kane's help would be fucking wonderful.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, I figure that we would get a proto-TCN operation before the Earth is entirely lost. It's just... Well, look at Ithillid's comment that came up as I was writing this up.

I do not however think that, lacking the cheat provided by the Tacitus, we can get the fully operation TCN needed to get ahead of tiberium's mutation rate and stop it whilst also preventing liquid tiberium explosions. Not unless we push as hard as possible and sacrifice basically everything else that's not critical for that effort. Or at least, get a bit lucky reducing some of the effort and sacrifice needed so it's not an all or nothing effort anymore.

So something like by 2200 without the Tacitus, I figure we'd be able to finally start the true and final reclamation of Earth. It's just by that point the planet's completely uninhabitable so we'd better hope we managed to evacuate offworld before then. Which means fulfilling a different win condition first.

 

[Jadankorr]

Here's a few pieces of information that are all QM verified (in Discord).
- Evacuation is one way to win the quest.
- There will be space colonists within this quest.
- There will be space fleets within this quest.
- There will be lunar and Martian cities within this quest.
(Of course all of this depends on us choosing to spend money on space)

- Getting the TCN is another way to win the quest.
- We cannot build the TCN without Kane / Tacitus.
- There is no way to permanently stop Tiberium without the TCN.

These are all explicit statements of truth that are QM verified.

So, what a bunch of people want to do is basically build up space, and build up the military so that when Kane comes to the negotiation table, he has no leverage. Space = we aren't stuck on this Tiberium death ball. Military = we will kick the crap out of you fi you try anything funny. Kane's Plan A is relying on GDI to be so desperate with the Tiberium situation, he gets to do whatever he wants. So don't let him.

 

[Crazycryodude]

Space evacuation isn't "pack everyone in a colony ship and go to Alpha Centauri hoping we find something habitable", that would indeed be absurd. It's "pack everyone into giant refugee camps in pressurized caverns we dug on the Moon" which is significantly more feasible. Just trickling a little bit of spare change into space here and there already has us fleets of fusion lift rockets that can deliver hundreds of tons to orbit and a fully operational orbital manufacturing base. If we'd actually put some real money into it over the past 5 years we'd have WAY more of an orbital presence, but even the scraps we've occasionally tossed the sector have done some impressive work.

It's not remotely impossible to get a few billion people off the planet if we wanted to. We aren't going to be able to build 2 billion peoples' worth of nice comfy O'Neill cylinders in a decade or whatever, that ship sailed when we decided to not spend any money on space for half a decade, but digging some big holes on the Moon/Mars and filling them with atmosphere and refugees is 100% feasible if Earth's surface keeps getting consistently worse. Tiberium vastly, impossibly simplifies the logistics of maintaining a technological society, and even if we have to evacuate the surface of Earth nothing is stopping us from mining the shit out of it to feed into vast industrial complexes in orbit that allow us to continue having an industrial civilization. It'll just be a rough decade or two trying to get everyone an actual house instead of a low-g refugee camp, but humanity (and I mean every human alive besides suicidally dedicated Nod members, not just the Blue Zone populations) can get off Earth and continue having a civilization.

 

[Ithillid]

Is this because the Earth's mantle is getting turned into tiberium? Because if that's happening, then we can't possibly harvest and convert and contain the tiberium down there, the stuff that's slowly growing tens or hundreds of kilometers underground, because there's no plausible way to do that even with excellent technology. Even if we could mine it we can't eliminate it. So it'd just keep spreading through the interior, and eventually any Blue Zone we were maintaining on the Earth's surface would be claimed by massive eruptions of tiberium veins from below, originating inside the mantle and spreading up through the crust.

Click to shrink...

Less massive eruptions of Tiberium veins from below, and more the Yellowstone Caldera or one of the other major volcanoes detonating as liquid Tiberium mixes with lava.

 

[Lightwhispers]

Also, regarding the whole "abatement going away" thing... Every Zone can support at least 2 Super-MARV fleets. In Red Zones at least, each fleet provides 3 Mitigation. Just on the Red Zones, that's 48 Mitigation. If Yellow and Blue Zone fleets give the same amount, that's 150 more. And that's Phase 1 of MARVs. The more Tiberium grows, the more we can intensify harvesting. The question is not, will we run out of ways to fight against encroaching Tiberium. The question is, will we be able to keep up? (And, how long until a Tiberium supervolcano goes boom or something similar.)

 

[Durabys]

Man. What I would give for complete and utter understanding of Tiberium. Including all its potential evolutionary levels.

It is a basically a Femtotech matter assembler.

 

[TheFourthman]

Space evacuation isn't "pack everyone in a colony ship and go to Alpha Centauri hoping we find something habitable", that would indeed be absurd. It's "pack everyone into giant refugee camps in pressurized caverns we dug on the Moon" which is significantly more feasible. Just trickling a little bit of spare change into space here and there already has us fleets of fusion lift rockets that can deliver hundreds of tons to orbit and a fully operational orbital manufacturing base. If we'd actually put some real money into it over the past 5 years we'd have WAY more of an orbital presence, but even the scraps we've occasionally tossed the sector have done some impressive work.

It's not remotely impossible to get a few billion people off the planet if we wanted to. We aren't going to be able to build 2 billion peoples' worth of nice comfy O'Neill cylinders in a decade or whatever, that ship sailed when we decided to not spend any money on space for half a decade, but digging some big holes on the Moon/Mars and filling them with atmosphere and refugees is 100% feasible if Earth's surface keeps getting consistently worse. Tiberium vastly, impossibly simplifies the logistics of maintaining a technological society, and even if we have to evacuate the surface of Earth nothing is stopping us from mining the shit out of it to feed into vast industrial complexes in orbit that allow us to continue having an industrial civilization. It'll just be a rough decade or two trying to get everyone an actual house instead of a low-g refugee camp, but humanity (and I mean every human alive besides suicidally dedicated Nod members, not just the Blue Zone populations) can get off Earth and continue having a civilization.

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I would add to his vision this. Unless it's an emergency? This will be phased. So people will go up. As they go up?That opens up space on earth . So people can go from Blue Zone to space. But at the same time? That means more Yellow zoners can move into the Blue zone. Hopefully allowing those in the Red Zone to move into the Yellow or coaxing those who haven't joined us into joining. Then cycling like that until everyone who wants a ride into space has one.

It will be a PR nightmare until we start really shipping the Yellow Zone membership up. But when we do? It'll give Nod the biggest L we've ever given them.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Less massive eruptions of Tiberium veins from below, and more the Yellowstone Caldera or one of the other major volcanoes detonating as liquid Tiberium mixes with lava.

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Hm, that would be a preliminary step, yes.

In theory we might be able to keep that from rendering the entire Earth truly uninhabitable if we were already bunkered down inside arcologies and living on hydroponics and so on anyway...

But (1) it'd make things really difficult while physically destroying huge swathes of what we'd already built, and (2) it'd probably summon the Scrin for another go, and (3) even if we could handle both of those problems indefinitely, eventually the ground would turn to tiberium under our feet anyway.

It's not remotely impossible to get a few billion people off the planet if we wanted to. We aren't going to be able to build 2 billion peoples' worth of nice comfy O'Neill cylinders in a decade or whatever, that ship sailed when we decided to not spend any money on space for half a decade...

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In all fairness, the price of spending that much money on space would probably have been extreme, painful urgency in getting the job done faster, because the Red Zones would be overrunning the planet quite rapidly, and we'd absotively posilutely need every scrap of space mining RpT we could muster because our tiberium income would be so much lower.

 

[Mortis]

I think we'd start with mostly yellow zoners, who are in the process of being overrun by tiberium, rather than blue zoners who are relatively safe and productive for now, and can go up later.